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5 slides generated from the cancer page, with a quiz from the open benchmark and speaker notes that cite the sources. Arrow keys move between slides; Print gives one slide per page.
Urothelial carcinoma of the urethra is the type of urethral cancer that grows from the same lining as bladder cancer, usually in the part of the urethra nearest the bladder or running through the prostate. It is treated by borrowing from bladder cancer: surgery, and chemotherapy with cisplatin before surgery when the disease is advanced.
Primary urethral carcinoma is classified by the lining it arises from, and urothelial carcinoma arises in the proximal (bulbomembranous and prostatic) urethra in men and the proximal urethra in women, where the lining is urothelium continuous with the bladder (Gakis 2013). In the international collaboration on primary urethral carcinoma, 154 patients from ten referral centres between 1993 and 2012 had urothelial carcinoma in 47 percent, squamous cell carcinoma in 30 percent, adenocarcinoma in 11 percent and mixed or other histology in the rest; clinical nodal stage was the critical predictor of recurrence and survival (Gakis 2016). Two thirds of the patients in that series were men.
How it differs from its parent: the parent page covers all urethral cancers; this histology is the one closest to bladder cancer in behaviour and treatment, and it can be a first presentation of urothelial carcinoma of the prostatic ducts, which the EAU guideline treats with cystoprostatectomy pathways. A separate urethral urothelial carcinoma must also be distinguished from recurrence in the urethra after cystectomy for bladder cancer, which is staged as bladder disease.
| Setting | Approach | Guideline |
|---|---|---|
| All stages | Treated as the parent page describes, borrowing bladder cancer pathways: urethra-sparing surgery when distal, cisplatin-based chemotherapy before surgery or chemoradiation when locally advanced, bladder-cancer systemic therapy when metastatic. | not mapped |